Today@Dal

The Faculty of Medicine is saddened to hear of the passing of retired faculty member and former head of the Department of Pathology, Dr. John Godfrey Heathcote, on March 20, 2024, at the age of 73.

Dr. Heathcote was educated at West Park Catholic Grammar School in St. Helens, followed by St. John’s College, Cambridge University, and University College Hospital, London. He completed a Ph.D. in Medical Biochemistry at the University of Manchester, UK, before completing his residency training in anatomical pathology and special training in ophthalmic pathology at the University of Western Ontario. He embarked on a lengthy academic journey, specializing in metabolic medicine, connective tissue biochemistry, anatomical pathology, and medical laboratory administration.

Dr. Heathcote was an accomplished and recognized expert in the pathology and developmental biology of the eye. He served as chairman of the Canadian Ophthalmic Pathology Society from 1999 to 2014 and president of the British Association for Ophthalmic Pathology from 2016 to 2019. After serving as chair of the Department of Pathology at the University of Western Ontario until 2000, he came to Dalhousie in 2004 where he was a professor and head in the Department of Pathology, and a professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. Following these appointments, he served as Senior Medical Director of the Provincial Pathology & Laboratory Medicine Program in Nova Scotia.

Dr. Heathcote retired to Bayfield, Ontario in 2019.

A devoted and professional physician, Dr. Heathcote will be missed by all those who knew and loved him.

Read his full obituary.